WASHINGTON, April 5 (UPI) -- A key Web forum for the al-Qaida terrorist group was back online after a lengthy blackout analysts said they believe was caused by a cyberattack.
Shumukh al-Islam, considered one of the terrorist network's two main sites, went dark March 22 and was back up Wednesday, with a message that "the enemies of Allah … attempted to target" the forum "with a failed, miserable campaign," The Washington Post reported.
Shumukh al-Islam was one of six Web sites associated with al-Qaida affected by the outage, analysts said. The five other sites were still offline as of Wednesday.
The message on Shumukh al-Islam said "dozens of forums instead of just one" would spring up because of the take-down, a translation by Flashpoint Global Partners, which tracks jihadi Web sites, indicated.
No one has claimed responsibility for the actions. U.S. officials said no U.S. agency, including the military's Cyber Command, was involved, the Post said.
Some analysts said they thought that perhaps site administrators may have taken the forums offline if they suspected foreign spies infiltrated the sites.
However, the message on Shumukh al-Islam indicated the outage was "at least partly an aggressive attack," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior partner at Flashpoint.
If Shumukh al-Islam shuts down, another site likely would take its place, Kohlmann told the Post.
"The long-term consequences come only if all the forums are taken out in such a way that there is no clear line of succession," Kohlmann said, because "people don't know where to turn" for jihadi messages.
